Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"In Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s achingly beautiful coming-of-age debut novel,
Big Girl, this body carries the weight of an entire neighborhood....
Big Girl triumphs as a love letter to the Black girls who are forced to enter womanhood too early — and to a version of Harlem that no longer exists. In this novel, gentrification means a violent thinning of the true beauty of Black and immigrant cultures and tightknit communities that have been nearly erased in service of commercialism and whiteness." -- Cleyvis Natera - New York Times Book Review
"Can something be both a love letter and a take-down?
Big Girl is that: a love letter to 90s culture (shout-out to Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah) and a take-down of 90s culture (looking at you, Weight Watchers) . . . a coming-of-age story with a capacious lens. For readers interested in a sharp look at Black womanhood, 90s Harlem, and the toxicity of body shame,
Big Girl is a sure bet." -- Electric Literature, "Favorite Novels of 2022"
"Mecca Jamilah Sullivan’s debut novel weaves Malaya’s joyful friendships and discovery of hip-hop with a measured look at the injuries and shame passed down through generations." -- Emma Alpern - Vulture
"I loved Malaya because I love stories about girls pushing back against societal expectations. This novel is about so many things—gentrification, intergenerational trauma, Black womanhood, love in all forms—but it’s Sullivan’s heart-rending observations about her character’s sense of disconnect in her body that kept a lump in my throat." -- Laura Warrell - The Millions
"[
Big Girl is] a painful, intimate, and ultimately celebratory book about one girl’s determination to claim space. What’s especially breathtaking is the way Sullivan writes about queerness as reprieve and refugee. It is through moments of queer love and desire that Malaya begins to imagine a life lived on her own terms." -- Laura Sackton - Book Riot
"Bountiful and biting, Sullivan’s debut is a crucial meditation on indulgence, identity, and inheritance, a story for those whose desire for self-determination and bodily autonomy cannot be satiated by the rations of a rapacious world." -- Jordan Taliha McDonald, Vulture, “49 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2022"
"Sullivan (the collection
Blue Talk and Love) charms in her stunning debut novel about a Black girl’s coming-of-age.... All of Sullivan’s characters—even the cruel ones—brim with humanity, and the author shines when conveying the details of Malaya’s comforts, such as Biggie Smalls lyrics, the portraits she paints in her room, the colors she braids into her hair, and the sweet-smelling dulce de coco candies she eats with a classmate with whom she shares a close and sexually charged friendship. This is a treasure." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"[A] young girl learns—and redefines—what it means to take up space . . . Sullivan writes with tenderness and uses the language of poetry to communicate her protagonist’s inner life . . . A lyrical and important coming-of-age novel." -- Kirkus Reviews
